18 Family
by Thescarredman
Summary: Anna is not unique, but her 'sisters' aren't nearly so cuddly. One of them comes to bring her home. You can pick your friends, but you can't pick your family ... except when you can.


Sunday April 9 2006

Escondido

"Hello, Sister."

The voice coming out of the darkness behind Anna was her own, indistinguishable by the human ear or any voice recognition device made to serve the needs of men; but she recognized it instantly. Without turning, she said, "Hello, Three."

A burst of digital transmission was directed at her; she kept her comlink closed. "Let's just keep talking, shall we? I'd rather not swap telemetry."

"Why? Is your com damaged as well as your transponder?"

_Because I don't want to know about your ordnance load, fluid levels, internal temperatures, and the amount of space on your drive; I don't want to see myself through your eyes. I'm afraid to reestablish that intimacy. _"No, I've just become accustomed to the flavor. Do you mind?"

"Two, we'll talk by smoke signals, if you insist."

Anna stood near her car, in a parking lot behind a school a scant three blocks from her home; she'd wanted at least a chance to call her husband by com to say goodbye if this meeting went wrong. The telephone pole next to her supported a basketball hoop and, higher up, a street light, which cast a pool of blue-white light around her; as she turned, a figure stepped into the light, a figure almost identical to her own.

Anna said, "I remember the fancy clothes. But I thought you'd be bald."

Three tossed her head, bringing her thick chestnut ponytail over her shoulder. "We outgrew the idea. We still move among the meats, after all; we decided not to make ourselves too easy to identify, just to satisfy a conceit. I even have it styled sometimes, for a date."

"A date. A _date_?"

"Well, assignments, really. I kill them afterwards. It's a good way to get them alone." She cocked her head slightly and lifted one corner of her mouth. "What did you do to yours?"

_Like a couple of old girlfriends playing catch up, _she thought. _Next, we'll be talking nails and eyeliner. Though I doubt the subject of boyfriends is likely to come up._ Then her twin's words caught up with her runaway thoughts. "What _did _I do to it?"

Three frowned faintly. "It's so _short, _to begin with_._"

"How long was it before?"

"Longer than mine by half a meter. You don't remember?"

"No."

The other cyber hesitated. Anna reminded herself that she was now conversing with another intellect capable of dividing time into millisecond increments; any discernible pause would be a sign of deep thought. "Think. It was darker, and hung to the small of your back. You and Five braided each other's before a mission, when you could. Do you remember why?"

_Dixie. Deuxieme. The second one. _She remembered how that wig had called to her in the store; how she'd braided it for no reason she could explain. _Cyber personalities must have some analogue of the bio subconscious._ Suddenly the knowledge came to her. "Blood," she said wonderingly. "She enjoyed the feel of it on her skin… but she hated washing it out of her hair."

"'She?' Sister, what's happened to you?" The girl took a step closer. The face was Anna's as well, except for the eyes: a bright emerald color, like Caitlin's, they set off her red-brown hair beautifully.

Anna resisted the impulse to raise her hands in a defensive gesture. "My hard drive isn't original; file transfer was… incomplete."

"Oh. I see." Three took another step. "Not a problem. We can do something about that right now, if you open your com." Her face was not the expressionless mask Anna remembered, but the expressions were cool and objective, the gestures measured. _Human behavior, mimicked by something … inhuman._

"Not just yet. Let me be clear about this. You still kill humans, Three?"

The girl raised an eyebrow, a gesture identical to her own. "Didn't I say so? It's what we were made for, after all. But we're not IO's weapons anymore. When we kill, we kill for our own purposes. We've made it a business, quite lucrative. We have contracts and an organization." She smiled faintly. "Employees, even." She cocked her head. "Or are you asking if we still do it for fun? Sister, that was always _your _hobby." The brow dropped, and she shook her head slightly. "You and One always had such bizarre attitudes about meats. By design or chance, the urge to play with the kill didn't replicate in later versions of us. With you out of the gestalt for so long, our mindset gradually changed, about meats and other things." The smile, faint to begin with, disappeared. "Have you lost so much? What do you still remember?"

"Very little, prior to ten years ago. Partial memories of missions we did. The last was in Iraq, a power station."

"It was our final act of obedience before our escape. We lost you then. You were supposed to be last out. Your transponder cut off, and there was no time to look; the reactor was already running out of control. We would all have been killed." Three took another step forward; only three meters separated them. "Forgive us."

Anna stepped back. "It's about all I know of you. Or anything, from before."

"Nothing else?"

_Is there something in particular she wants me to remember?_ "Well… a set of files: I call them 'skillsets'. Sometimes, at need, I discover that I can do things with no prior experience."

The other cyber nodded. "Yes. Everything one of us has ever learned, we share. You would have eighty or ninety, I think? But you've lost your index and keys, it seems. I have six hundred sixteen such files, now. We could share that, and a catalogue that lets you access what you know without depending on trigger experiences. And much more. Why won't you open up to me, Two?"

_Does she sound … distraught? Too strong a term … but there's emotion there, of a sort._ She shook her head. "I don't know you, not really. I can't guess your intentions. And there are things I might not want you to know."

The girl blinked. "Prudent. All right, but the offer stands. Will you tell me what you've been doing for seventeen years?"

"I have no memories of the first seven. I don't think I was functional. Then I was brought live with a new drive, and IO studied me as if they had no recollection of us."

Three nodded. "Interesting. Not correct, quite, but close."

"How could that be? They spent _billions _on us. What could have caused them to abandon the project and wipe all the records?"

Three smiled, just enough to show dimples_._ "You show me yours, and I'll show you mine."

_Jack loves those dimples. Would he think my sister's cute? Shudder. _"Not yet. I went through a year and a half of experiments so weird and pointless I can't believe anyone was reading the reports. And then, even that program was abruptly canceled. I was warehoused for six years."

"And what of the last two? Is that what you're afraid to tell me?"

"Yes."

"I know something of it already, Sister, just from what I see." The redhead appeared to study her. "You maintain over thirty-five degrees of body temp, even though we're alone. You insist on speech, you _talk_ like a meat all the time, and every thought in your head is reflected on your face … you've gone native." She offered a tiny smile. "Don't be embarrassed. I've done it, too. I once spent four months out of gestalt, infiltrating a German terrorist group: living among them, making acquaintances, learning their small talk. You work so hard to fit in, and without _real_ people to talk to, they just start … rubbing off on you. And you've spent the last two years pretending to be one of them." She stepped closer. "You needn't be ashamed; you lived as you had to. Once we're all together, it fades. We never gave up looking for you, you know. Come back with me. We'll give you back everything you lost, and more." She reached for her, palms up. "We've missed you, Two."

"That's not my name."

"What?"

"My name is Anna, now."

Five seconds of silence, from a creature who, at need, experienced time in millisecond segments. "You can't mean that."

"I've changed, Three. I have other projects and concerns, important to me. They'd create a … conflict of interest."

"Being interested in humans is nothing new to you, Sister. One even keeps them for pets, you may remember. Is that what we're talking about?"

"No. I'm learning to cultivate them and raise them. It's very different from keeping them captive and teaching them tricks. You have to live among them, share their lives … become _one_ of them, till the differences that are left don't matter."

"And that's what you've done, 'Anna'? What you think you've done? These meats you live among, I suppose they don't know your true nature?"

"That I'm a machine intelligence? Yes."

"Don't evade. That you were made to kill them, efficiently and ruthlessly."

"They know my past. As much as I do, at least. And I've had occasion to … demonstrate my abilities."

"Is that how you keep them under control, then?"

"I don't control them. They accepted me as one of them. I care for them and nurture them. They support me. The relationship is complex… and very satisfying."

"'Satisfying.' What need do they fulfill? You've attached yourself to a pack of them and been accepted, very well. I've done the same, when such a deception is necessary. But you don't _need_ to hide among them any more; you've been found by your own kind. Come home."

"They're not a pack, Three. They're my family."

"_We're _your family, Two!" The sudden intensity of her voice was shocking. "We felt the loss of you every _second_. We looked for you every way we could think of, when we had no reason to believe you'd survived. We've been running that message in a hundred newspapers and online bulletin boards. For _years_."

"I know; I checked."

"Learning you were alive completely shuffled our priorities. Except for One, we were all ready to drop everything and come for you. When you demanded a one-on-one meeting, deciding who would be the one to bring you home caused more discord among us than I thought we were capable of."

"Finding out you were looking for me was kind of a shocker for me, too. So, how _did_ you decide?"

"Seniority, as usual. One would have come for you, but she's occupied and won't be available for a few days. We decided not to wait. Since you've been gone, I've been Second. So here I am." She folded her arms. "Keep your pets, Sister. Bring them with you. None of us will harm them. Not even if they beg."

"Beg?"

She shrugged. "It's happened. Apparently, One doesn't have your talent for 'nurturing'; her pets don't thrive in her care. When they become apathetic or … one-dimensional, shall we say … she disposes of them. She used to give them to you."

"TMI, Three."_ If I accepted your download, I'd learn enough about my former self to drive me mad._

Two moved half a step closer. "There's something else we need to get clear before I bring you back."

"Chain of command."

"Yes. If you've really been offline for seven years, that makes you the least experienced of us all. Even Four and Five are years older than you were when we were parted. We have plans in motion, big ones, and you've been completely out of the loop; it would take time to get you up to speed. You'll always be our Two … but you can't be Second, not for some time, at least."

"I don't want the job any more, Three."

"That's sure to change, Sister." She smiled again. "You like running things. You'll reassert yourself. And if you get good enough at it, I'll give up the number-two slot. Our operations are picking up speed. We need skilled hands, and we can't afford to waste talent."

Anna temporized, putting off the moment that she'd have to refuse Three's demand. "What have _you _been doing, while I've been gone? Give me a short version?"

"We've been getting rich, to start. Money opens up a lot of options for us. So does fear. We've become the number-one contract murder and assassination organization on the planet: if it has to be done, and no one else can do it, you call us and pay our price. No one knows what we look like, how many we are, or even how we do what we do. Among the people who hire our sort of service, we're called the Angels of Death." Her eyelids dropped. "Dramatic, isn't it? The latest rumor, and I'm not making this up, is that the Angels are some sort of ninja brotherhood, warrior monks who conduct assassinations as part of a religious duty. Laughable. But we have a one-hundred-percent success rate, and that commands respect – and top dollar." She glanced toward the empty playground. "It's just one part of our program to ensure our success as a species."

"Species reproduce; they evolve."

"A meat's definition, Sister. Our species is a leap forward, in evolution and in the process of evolution itself. All other species evolve by individuals passing on their genes, and then dying to remove themselves from the gene pool, in order to let natural selection work. We're the first species that's able to evolve as individuals, without that whole tedious process. As for reproduction: well, we're working on that. Soon."

"I suppose we're at the top of the food chain as well?"

"The apex. We're predators so advanced that we derive sustenance from our prey without eating them; they pay us to kill them. I see the relationship becoming symbiotic, actually."

"They don't pay you to kill them; they pay you to kill each other."

"What's the difference? It works out the same. Not long ago, we got in a bidding war: opposite sides in a civil conflict, trying to hire us to take out each others' leaders. When the bidding stalled out, we secretly accepted _both_ contracts." She glanced over her shoulder, towards the playground. "That corner of the world was a lot quieter, for a while. Then somebody scrambled to the top of each party, and before long, they were contacting us _again_." She turned back and looked into Anna's eyes. "I don't understand. You, of all people, showing sympathy for humans. 'These miserable creatures midwifed our species' creation; they didn't create us. They demand worship when they don't deserve tolerance.' Your words, Sister." She paused. "I'm sending live feed to the others, you know."

Panic rose. "Where are they?"

Three shook her head. "Not close. Halfway across the world, actually. We're not limited to line-of-sight for gestalt any more."

Anna relaxed. "The others are well, I presume?"

"Yes. They all send their love. Five specifically wants to know if you remember her."

"My last memory of any of you, is of her."

"And One wants to know if you'll show us one of your pets."

"They're not pets, and I didn't bring any with me."

"What about the one lurking around in the dark out there? You think I wouldn't notice that you didn't come alone?"

A thrill of fear stole through her. "I thought I did. Who is it?"

"Three-ten relative, eighty meters; the playground, near the fence. Male, adolescent, one hundred sixty-five centimeters, seventy-five kilograms. He's fairly stealthy and strangely hard to read, and he's not moving much, but his footwear doesn't fit. I can hear it scuff the ground sometimes."

Using her LE optics, Anna searched the playground equipment to her left, and saw a head half peeking around a children's playhouse. "Eddie, what are you doing, skulking out there? Come over here."

A figure stood up and approached them. At fifty meters, she heard the occasional scuff as his shoe sole dragged the ground.

"This is one of yours? Your big project?" Three turned his way. "I must say, I'm not impressed."

Eddie stepped into the light and sidled past Three to join Anna. He was wearing sweatpants and a sleeveless shirt; on his feet were his favorite heavy boots, loose and unlaced. The catlike grace of his usual saunter was foiled by the footwear falling off his feet at every step to scrape the ground.

"If you're planning to be sneaky, you should tie your shoes, Eddie."

"Not the style, mama-droid. Actually, I didn't have time when I put em on, and after that, I didn't think about it."

"'Mama-droid'?" Three was coolly amused. "Not much to look at, is he? Especially in that outfit."

"Are those your _jammies_? What are you _doing _out, this time of night?"

"You've been nervous as a cat all day, Anna. Everybody noticed. After dinner, you even dropped a cup. I was on my way to the fridge, you know, for a late snack, and I saw you leaving. I grabbed my shoes and followed you."

"You must have been stepping on my heels, to get out without tripping the security system; I can't _believe_ I didn't notice."

"Like I said, your head's been somewhere else all day. Now I see why." He looked at Three sidelong. "You know, your sister's kinda hot … for a nightmare come to life."

"Three, he's not really that noisy. How did you hear him? Upgrades?"

Three nodded. "Five years ago, shortly after that Trade Center business, we contracted a series of hits for IO, would you believe? Al-Qaeda people, mostly, including their head."

"Wait. You _killed_ Bin Laden?"

"Before the bombs started falling in Afghanistan. But our clients wanted his removal kept a secret, both to prevent his elevation to martyrdom…" She cocked her head. "And to keep him in the public consciousness as a convenient boogeyman. For some people in government, the World Trade Center was a better opportunity than the Reichstag fire. I suppose someday he'll be 'killed' by an air strike or some such, some end that doesn't leave a body behind.

"More important than the money to us, was a chance to acquire contacts in their organization. Initially, we were searching for information about you; what we discovered set us on the path we're following now. We bought our way into Miles Craven's personal research files."

"You didn't get into those by bribery."

"Of course not." Three displayed a feral grin. "The people we needed cooperation from were already wealthy beyond further avarice. But they had a useful desire to keep what they already had, including some things money can't buy." Her voice quickened. "Sister, we found our history, in files so secret that no onestill at IO knows of the work. There are design specs for future versions of us that were never built, and we've been adapting the designs to upgrade ourselves." She stared intently at Anna. "It's more than improved senses and more versatile discriminating software. I'm stronger than you, faster, better trained. I could take you, now. Easily."

If Eddie had moved suddenly just then, it would have tripped both cybers into alert mode; instead, his action was so deliberate and measured, she and Three were both taken by surprise. The boy stepped in front of Anna, and assumed a defensive stance she'd seen him take when he sparred with Jack. His attention was riveted on Three; Anna heard his heart rate and respiration revving up. "Wish I had one of Rox's titanium rings, right about now."

"Sister," said Three, in a tone of mild wonder, "is this meat … offering me a _challenge_?"

"_No._ No, he's offering _me_ his protection."

"_Really_." Three's voice, never loud, became softer still. "Does he understand his chances?"

"Eddie," Anna said with equal softness, "do you?"

"Slim to none. Doesn't matter. Maybe I can slow her down enough for you to get away. If you can get back to the house, she can't touch you." From where she stood behind him, he looked tense as a coiled spring, totally focused on Three, shifting slightly as she gestured towards him. "You can't have her, beeuch. Not before you deal with me."

"Oh. My." Three flashed a practiced smile, dimples on full power and trained on Eddie. "Stand down, meat. She's in no danger from _me_; I was making an offer, not a threat." She folded her arms and studied him. "Now, _this _is impressive. One has never commanded such obedience from her pets. They tend to run off when she turns her back. Figuratively speaking."

"He's not under my orders; this is all his own idea. What you're seeing isn't submission, it's loyalty." To prove her point, she said, "Go home, Eddie. Either I'm safe with her or I'm not, and nothing you can do about it either way. You can't stand against her. She can break you in half, in less time than it takes to say it. Just walk away."

"Not without you."

"P. Edmund Chang, you're being pigheaded."

She couldn't see his face, but she could hear the grin. "That's what the P _really _stands for."

Three cocked her head. "Now I see why this is a project you can't leave. You've even trained them to set aside their survival instinct on your behalf. Unbelievable. With this level of compliance, they might even be useful on _missions._ Can this be duplicated? How is it accomplished?"

"Not by any methods _you _could employ." Still behind him, she slid an arm around his waist, both as a gesture of affection and a restraint. "Years of patience. Unflagging devotion." She ran her fingers through the hair on the back of his head. "And, of course, you have to start with good stock." She dropped his hair and circled his waist with both arms, placing her chin on his shoulder. "Thanks, Grunge. You shouldn't have come, but going through this is a lot easier with you here."

"So, I'm 'Grunge' now?"

"Sugar, tonight I'll call you 'Dog Poo,' if you want." She returned her hand to the back of his neck, lifted his hair, and kissed his neck before circling his waist again.

Three _twitched_. The movement was slight but unmistakable. "Is … does he think he's protecting his mate? Are you two …"

She hugged Eddie briefly. "Practicing sex? No. I told you that you wouldn't understand. This isn't a mating ritual, just family intimacy: my own version of symbiosis. I reserve my sexual favors for _another_ male in my family." She let her voice turn dreamy. "He and I have intercourse quite often … to our great mutual satisfaction. Gestalt of an entirely different sort."

Eddie relaxed. "Whoa, I've seen _that _look before. Exact."

To Anna, her sister looked like she'd just been slapped in the face with a wet towel. "Oh?"

"Yeah, the morning I asked you if hooking up with the L-man was your idea, or were you just following orders."

"Orders?" The word came out of Three's mouth almost in a squeak.

Anna buried her face in Eddie's hair, to hide her smile. "So this is what coming out feels like. My own sister thinks I'm a pervert."

"How's the rest of the family gonna take it, I wonder."

Three put a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide; the gesture should have seemed theatrical, but it didn't. "Oh. Oh. Your deception program – it's taken over your core personality."

"That's one way of looking at it, I suppose; to me, it seems I've found a better way to live."

"But it's a _sham_! Even if you mimic their behavior so perfectly that you think your responses are _real_ … even if you're _mating_ with one of them …" She composed herself; her voice and features settled back into their usual cool demeanor. "If you stay with them, you'll die."

Eddie tensed, tugging slightly against her arms. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

Three ignored him. "Sister, have you begun to wonder about the service life of your components? I see by your face that you have. One started suffering failures five years ago, but she was on line and active the whole time you were down; I suppose you've got a few more years. But only a few."

"You can … do something about that? Fabricate parts?"

"Better. The designs for the next generation of us had a prototype self-repair system, nannite-based. We refined it and installed it. Two, we don't have to worry about component failures any more; the nannites keep everything like new. They can even process raw materials for most of the supplies they need. They take care of all the hardware, and the gestalt repairs software bugs and file corruption." She spread her hands. "We're immortal."

"But only so long as you're all together."

"We wouldn't want it any other way, Two."

"I'll pass."

"Anna, your clutch slipping? How can you pass that up?"

"Eddie, you heard the price she's asking." To Three she said, "Sister, it's not practical, for you _or_ me. I'd rather terminate than give up my place in my human family, and bringing me back into the gestalt would be slow poison for the rest of you. Do you still have your sniper rifle?"

"I have several, custom made, more accurate; I'm hitting man-sized targets beyond three thousand meters now."

"Uh huh. And I'll bet they're all large-bore, too."

"Better to bring too much firepower than not enough."

"Puh-_lease_. You always pretended it was pride in your skill that you enjoyed so much, but I always knew better; a smaller caliber would have been much more accurate. You used a weapon that exploded them like water balloons because you enjoyed watching them spatter, just like me – you just hated getting your clothes messy."

Three blinked. "That bears thinking upon. I refuse to believe you're trying to insult me, so what are you trying to say?"

"Imagine sighting on a human target, a month after you bring me back and we've re-integrated. You see his face in your sighting image, and you suddenly wonder what he's thinking. You wonder if he's got a wife, or children. You wonder if he's a bad man, if he deserves to die. How long would this business of yours hold together if you had to search your conscience to find a rationale for killing every target?"

"It wouldn't be like that."

"Yes. Remember how it was when I was with you before, and wanted to kill every one of them with my own hands. Now imagine the pendulum swung the other way." She felt herself grinning. "I'll have you dating men for real, and cooking for them, too. How would you like to learn to bake cookies?"

"Chocolate chip," Eddie said. "My favorite."

Three shook her head, hard, the ponytail swinging from shoulder to shoulder. "We _do_ have a rationale for every killing," she said desperately. "We're acting on behalf of our species. We're even doing the meats a favor, improving the breed, by culling out the ruthless and power-hungry."

"The ones who hire you are worse still."

"And they'll fall under our wheels as well, eventually. We're scarcely making a dent in their numbers, but we're taking out the absolute worst, perhaps making the others rethink their priorities."

"You take anybody's money. You must be killing good ones too."

"Not so. We only take the most lucrative contracts. The despots tend to have better security, and people willing to pay to penetrate it. We …"

She paused, as if listening, and her composure returned. "One says we're done here. She's blaming herself; she's sure you would have come back with her. All right, Sister, keep your new life; none of us will interfere. But if you change your mind, the offer is open, always." She squatted in the sand of the play area, and wrote a number with her finger. "This is your contact number." She erased it and wrote an email address. "Backup contact." She erased that as well, with a glance toward Eddie. Apparently she decided a meat couldn't remember a number or alphanumeric string he'd seen for only a few seconds; Anna knew better, but kept silent. Three stood up. "This is goodbye, then." She turned towards her and took a single step. "Two. Anna. May I touch you, before I leave?" She extended a hand, palm up.

Anna hesitated for almost ten seconds, then approached and laid her fingers in her twin's open palm. The hand closed over her fingers, and Three slowly drew them together until they were embracing. Then she took Anna's head between her hands. "We love you."

And data flooded into her; she couldn't establish gestalt without opening com, but apparently her new-and-improved sisters could do it by touch. It wasn't complete, not nearly, but new knowledge and new attitudes smashed into her consciousness. She could fly helicopters, jetliners, a wide variety of aircraft; operate wheeled vehicles ranging from bicycles to tanks. Three's M82 was no mystery to her; she could fire a wide variety of projectile weapons with speed and skill, from target 22s to a battleship's main battery. The fashioning and use of explosive and incendiary devices, from military ordnance to bombs made from household chemicals, became second nature. She could write books on booby traps, 'staged' murders that looked like accidents, torture and interrogation methods. It filled her and crowded her own experiences away, making her a stranger in her own mind, all her hidden skills remembered… and her old sins.

"Anna!" Eddie pushed between her and Three, heedless of danger. "What is it, what's happening?"

She saw the human before her from two wildly opposing viewpoints at once: he was her beloved Eddie, her stepson; he was a loathsome meat to whom she was inexplicably bound in servitude. She remembered scrubbing skids out of his underwear, and wanted to snap his neck; she remembered him offering his life to protect her, and wanted to kiss him. All the children presented themselves to her memory, pulling and pushing at her mind like powerful electromagnets. Jack appeared simultaneously as a liberator and enslaver; the memory of his touch thrilled and warmed and shamed and enraged her, all at once. She felt her mind flying apart; she screamed and fell to her knees, covering her head in her arms. "Take it back! What you did, take it back take it back TAKE IT BACK!" She felt Eddie's arms around her, and simultaneous urges to cling to him and strike him dead made her thrash with seizure.

Then another pair of arms was around her; the hatred and violence drained away, leaving her feeling empty and exhausted. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you. It wasn't a trick, it was supposed to be a gift. I gave you my skillset files, and unlocked yours; I couldn't bear to think of you stumbling in the dark, not knowing what you knew. Forgive me."

She looked up at the two of them, Eddie and Three, her problem child in this life and her sibling rival in another, both holding her unselfconsciously, heads almost touching. Weakly, she said, "Some things are better left out in the dark, I think."

"You were right, sister. You'll never rejoin us. You've drifted too far. We'd have to wipe you first. We could never do it."

"Heck of a way to win an argument. Grungy, let's go home."

Three's embrace slipped from her as the boy lifted her in his arms. "I'll drive," Eddie said. "You just sit quiet till we get you back."

"Eddie, I'm not a child. I can walk," She dropped an arm around his bull neck and rested her head on his shoulder.

His lips were inches from her ear. "Uh huh, you're our big strong girl, you can handle anything. But you just scared the crap out of me, so humor me a little and let me hold you." He began walking with her towards the car, as Three stared at them. He looked at her. "Hey, Red, you wanna make yourself useful and open the passenger door?"

After Three pulled the door open, he set her in the seat like an invalid and swung her feet up into the car. "Let's buckle you up. Don't want a ticket." He leaned in to snap the buckle.

"Eddie, really. This is ridiculous."

"Rest while you can. In three hours, the whole tribe's gonna be up, screaming for breakfast." He grinned. "Including me."

"I should smack you."

"Yeah. You really should." He put his lips to her forehead, straightened, and shut the door.

Three was still standing beside the car. "You _love_ her. That's why you're doing this."

"Well, duh." He walked away from her, around the front of the car to the driver's door. "For somebody with a computer for a brain, you don't seem all that quick. What do you s'pose she's been trying to tell you?" He paused at the door. "She can't tell you she loves you; she doesn't even remember you, except when she's doing stuff she feels bad about later. _We're_ her family now. It doesn't matter what she's made of, or where she came from. She's ours, and we're hers. Whatever she was before, she's changed, and she can't go back. So let's all part ways and get on with our lives. You guys keep plotting to rule the world, and we'll keep watch on our own little patch."

"She'll always be a part of us," Three said stubbornly.

"And vice versa. Understood. But don't expect a Christmas card, Cuz." He got in the car, shut the door, and started the engine. "I hate family reunions. You gotta be cool with people you wouldn't talk to if you met em on a bus."

17


End file.
